


handle with care.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Depression, M/M, Post Episode: s08e23 Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 10:25:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean doesn't give him a chance to explain.  Dean breaks his nose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	handle with care.

Castiel doesn’t have very far to fall.  He lands in the grove of trees just outside the bunker.  He sits on the steps by the entrance, his back to the road, and waits for a long time.  

He waits there through the night and closes his eyes so he won’t have to watch the stars fall from the sky.  He waits there through the morning and follows the patterns of the grain in the solid oak door.  He waits there through the late afternoon heat until he hears the rumble of the Impala pulling up to the curb just behind him, the abrupt silence as her engine cuts off, the car doors slamming shut. 

He stands up when Dean comes up to the door, and Dean stops dead in his tracks.  He isn’t sure what he wants to say.  Probably he ought to have used all this time he’s spent waiting trying to decide what he should say, but his thoughts had slid away every time he’d tried to think about it.  

But Dean doesn’t give him a chance to explain.  Dean breaks his nose.

He doesn’t mean to stumble back into the bunker’s door, nor does he mean to slide down to the ground, but these things happen regardless of his intent.  The trenchcoat bunches up around his shoulders and catches on the doorknob.  

He supposes he shouldn’t feel so surprised at this reception.  He had distantly supposed, when he was able to think about it at all, that Dean wouldn’t be happy to see him.  He’d been right after all.  

A punch to the face isn’t surprising, all things considered.  It hurts, which is.  

Dean hovers over him, glowering uncertainly. ”Don’t say a word,” he threatens, and shakes out his fist.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel says anyway.  The words come out sounding more like  _Ello, Deend_.  

He raises his hand to touch his nose, and his fingers come away tacky with blood.   He stares at those blood-coated fingers, mesmerized, until Dean snatches at the lapels of his coat, picking him up off the ground, and hauls him inside.  

Dean takes a look at his face, looks at the blood gushing from Castiel’s nose, sees the way Castiel’s breath wheezes painfully through his nose, and goes abruptly still.    “You- are you…?”

“I fell,” Castiel says.  The words are heavy on his tongue.

“Fuck, Cas.”  

Dean swears some more under his breath, and holds the cuff of his sleeve to up Castiel’s nose.  He grimaces at the blood trickling down down Castiel’s chin and gingerly wipes his face, slowly dabbing at the blood above Castiel’s lip.  He’s moving so carefully, as though Castiel might break under his touch.  

Castiel doesn’t appreciate being handled like this.  He doesn’t particularly care for Dean’s hands on his face.  He wishes Dean would leave him alone.  But it seems easier to let Dean have his way, so he cups his hands around his busted nose protectively and allows Dean to clean the blood away.  

“Jesus Christ, Cas, what the hell happened back there?” Dean’s asking, “I can’t believe you just  _left_ us like that, I didn’t have any idea where you were, Sam almost  _died_ -”

Castiel stares at him, tries to focus on Dean’s words, but it’s increasingly hard to do.  He can’t quite meet Dean’s eyes, because Dean won’t look at him.  Instead he’s concentrating on a spot somewhere off to the side of Castiel’s face.

“You get the picture, Cas?” Dean’s snapping, “You understand?”

Yes, he does.  Dean has made himself perfectly clear.  

“I shouldn’t be here,” he says aloud.  Dean does look up at that, and a startling change goes over his face.  

“No, that’s not what I—  _Cas_ —”   Dean sounds bewildered.  Castiel can relate.  He knows the feeling.  “Cas…”  

Dean is looking at him with such a strange expression.  He seems desperately unhappy over something, and Castiel doesn’t know what to make of it.  Dean’s never looked at him this way before.

“You okay?” Dean’s asking, quieter now.  It seems to Castiel to be a rather pointless sentiment.  Of course he isn’t all right.  Dean broke his nose only minutes ago.  The question doesn’t make sense.  But then, Castiel is used to that.  

“I’m fine,” he says, instead of saying all that. His heartbeat thuds distantly in his ears.  Castiel feels a somewhat distant desire to make Dean stop looking like that, but he doesn’t know how to bring that about, doesn’t know what to say.  Dean is unhappy: this is exactly what Castiel was trying to prevent, and now it’s happening all over again.  He wishes he were somewhere far away from here.  He shouldn’t have stayed.

“ _Cas_ -”  Dean is gripping his shoulder.  The roaring in his ears grows louder.  Castiel shakes his head.  

“I’m fine,” he says again, and he pulls away from Dean’s hand.   

He already fell, but he feels like he’s still falling.

He brushes past Dean and walks into the library.  He sits down in the first armchair he sees, and doesn’t get up.

— 

Dean is strange in the days after that.  He’s always there, hovering somewhere off to the side of he armchair, forever trying to get Castiel to  _move_.  

He crouches awkwardly next to the armchair and clears his throat. “Hey buddy,” he says. “You know you’ve got a room, right? A real bed? With blankets and pillows and everything.  You don’t have to keep sitting here.”

Castiel folds his hands carefully in his lap. He really doesn’t feel inclined to move.  The armchair is tolerable.  The library is perfectly adequate.  There is a window directly in front of him, and he can stare outside for as long as he wants.  The idea of a bed holds little appeal. He can sleep here, in the chair, if he wants to.  

This is comfortable, or at least as comfortable as he can be with a broken nose.  It throbs whenever he turns his head too quickly, so he tries not to turn his head at all. 

“I’m fine,” he says politely.

“I think you’d be more comfortable in a bed,” Dean says. “Like Sam. He’s resting up too. Why don’t you go lie down for a while, huh?”

“No, thank you,” Castiel says, and stares out the window.  The glass needs washing, he supposes.  The view of the trees round the bunker is blurred.  But that doesn’t matter much.

Dean won’t leave him alone.  He’s leaning over the chair, prodding at his shoulder.  “Cas.  _Castiel._ ”  

Castiel choses not to respond, and when it becomes clear that the prodding isn’t going to evoke any response, Dean moves around to stand in front of him.  He blocks the view of the window, but Castiel doesn’t move his head.  There’s no point: Dean will stay there, loud and large and intrusive, until he’s ready to go.  

“Jesus Christ,” Dean says.  “This is really pathetic, Cas.”  Castiel doesn’t feel inclined to argue with him.  He rather agrees.

There’s a hand on his forehead.  Astonishing. He’s never felt the touch of a hand on his forehead until now.  “Look at me, Cas,” Dean’s saying.

Castiel closes his eyes.  He hears Dean sigh.  He feels the rush of air against his cheek.  The hand drops away from his face.  “Fine,” Dean says.  ”Have it your way, then.”

Dean leaves, but he keeps coming back.  

“I could use some goddamn help around here,” Dean says conversationally one afternoon.  “I know you know how to make a fucking sandwich, Cas.  So, you know.  You’re not useless.  Or you wouldn’t be, if you’d get up.”

“You can’t just sit there forever,” Dean snaps the next time he stops by.  He’s probably right about that, Castiel supposes.  Forever is a long time.  Eventually Castiel will die, and his vessel will decompose.  Then Dean won’t have anything to complain about.  He thinks this sounds like an excellent plan.

But Dean seems to be trying to prevent Castiel from expiring, for some unknown reason.  ”There’s soup in the kitchen,” he says.  ”Get up and and I’ll make you some.”

He doesn’t want Dean’s soup.  He doesn’t want to get up.  All he wants is to stare out the window and be left alone.  “I’m not hungry.”

Dean goes away, but he comes back with a plate.  He sticks the plate in Castiel’s face.  A sandwich.  

“You gotta eat something, man,” he’s saying.  ”Just a few bites, okay?”  

Dean is concerned. Dean wants him to eat.  But the very existence of Dean’s concern makes Castiel want to resist.  It’s obvious that he’s  _handling_  Castiel, like an uncomfortable situation or a small child or an invalid, and Castiel wishes, in a fit of pique, that Dean would quit bothering him.  He doesn’t need handling.  He doesn’t need beds or sandwiches.  He is, or has been, an angel; there is nothing fragile about him at all, and he doesn’t need all this excessive care.  

Castiel stares at the sandwich with dislike.  

“Go away,” he says.  

Dean leaves the sandwich.  

—

Sam gets up long before Castiel does.  Castiel hears him shuffle down the corridor to the library, overhears him talking softly with Dean.  

“Sam’s doing all right,” Dean informs him the next time he stops by Castiel’s armchair.  ”For someone who’s supposed to be dead, he’s in pretty damn good shape.”

Sam seems to think Castiel needs company.  He pulls up a chair next to Castiel’s armchair and talks at him for a while.

“How are you feeling, Cas?” he asks.  He reaches out and pats Castiel’s arm. Castiel doesn’t try to stop him.  Sam can do as he likes.  It doesn’t matter if Castiel doesn’t want to be touched or not.

“I’m fine,” Castiel tells him.  ”I’m glad you’re all right.”  It’s an effort to say even that much, but it’s important that he does.  He supposes Sam ought to hear something like that, because Sam seems a bit hurt that Castiel won’t even look at him.

“I heard about the angels,” Sam’s saying quietly, and Castiel stares hard out the window.  ”About  _you._ I’m so sorry, Cas.”

Sam hesitates.  He’s talking very very carefully.   “I know this can’t be easy.  But we could help you, if you’d let us.”

Castiel pulls back from Sam’s cautious hand on his arm.  Sam sighs and lapses into silence.

He hears them talking afterward.  Dean’s voice isn’t easy to miss.  He sounds upset.  ”Done everything I could,” he snaps in response to Sam’s quiet question.  ”He won’t move.  He won’t listen to anything I say.  It must’ve been me, something I did, he won’t even  _look_ at me-“

Castiel tries his best to concentrate on the trees outside the bunker.  He can see Eastern red cedars and black hills spruce.  Birds have been making a nest in the red oak whose branches scrape against the bunker’s walls just outside the window.  He doesn’t want to listen to the hurt in Dean’s voice.

“What the hell I am supposed to  _do_ , Sammy?”

He would tell Dean, if he could, that he would get up off the chair if it were possible.  He’d tell Dean that, and then explain to him that it’s not Dean’s fault, it’s never Dean’s fault, that he’d been the one to hurt Dean first, and worst.  He’d say all that to Dean, but every time he goes to say something it’s as though he can feel a part of him float up and away to hover mindlessly by the ceiling, leaving the rest of him gray and empty.  

He’s not sad, like Sam seems to think.  He’s not in pain, like Dean supposes.  He just  _is_ , but what he is isn’t quite the same as it’s always been.  Something’s missing.  He’d describe what it was if he could, but he can’t remember what’s not there, except that it was important, that it had meant something, once, and that it’s gone.

—

He doesn’t mean to sleep, but he does anyway, falling into a hot, heavy, half slumber while a part of him remains awake.  He can hear Dean and Sam and the ever-elusive Kevin moving around the bunker, talking in low voices around the war table.    

He sees Dean’s soul, rising up to meet him in hell, feels the heat of his righteousness under his hands.  He’d saved Dean once.  Sam walks past, face changing into a leer and filled with a shining red light.  Dean brings him soup, but when he looks inside the bowl he only sees blood.  Dean burns with hellfire by his side.  The flames flicker over Castiel’s skin.

Dean draws a blanket over his shoulders.  Castiel’s lungs gasp for air, but he can’t breathe.  

“Hey,” Dean’s voice is saying, “take it easy.”

Castiel finds he can breathe after all.  ” _Dean_ ,” he pants, still feeling that fight for air shuddering under his skin.

Dean’s voice, by his ear.  ”Can’t you just tell me what’s wrong?” he murmurs. He sounds tired.  Defeated.  His forehead is resting on Castiel’s shoulder.  ”Why can’t you just be  _happy_ , huh?  Why can’t you just be glad you’re here with me, Cas?”

“This can’t be happening,” he whispers, the words coming out blurry and hazy and wrong, all wrong.  ”I don’t know what to do, I shouldn’t be here, you shouldn’t  _want_  me here-“

Dean draws back and walks away.

—  

His nose heals.  Dean takes to visiting him in his armchair at odd hours throughout the day, bringing him things, artifacts found in the bunker’s storage rooms: fertility charms from the Ukraine, cursed rings, Turkish scimitars.  Dean leaves him crossword puzzles and a handheld electronic game he calls  _Nintendo._

One afternoon Dean hauls a box filled with dusty records and sets up the gramophone, playing music he calls  _jazz_ and  _ragtime._

 _“_ Whatcha think?” Dean asks after he plays a record of what he calls  _swing_.  ”You gotta admit, this isn’t bad.”

He pauses hopefully, but Castiel declines to respond.  ”Thought you’d be into this old-time stuff, dude,” he mutters.  ”But whatever.”

Sam brings him books, and Castiel holds them, even trails his fingers through the mildewed pages, but when he tries to read the words he just sees a dark red stain on the back of his eyes, and after a few attempts he gives up.  

Sam notices.  It’s just as hard to escape Sam’s notice as it is to get away from Dean’s.  But Sam’s only reaction is to kindly take the books away and leave magazines and catalogs in their place.

Castiel pages through the magazines.  It’s more interesting than he’d like to admit, looking through the magazines.  Some magazines are about how others live, showing him clothes and recreational activities and how to design the interior of rooms.  He learns how to spray paint an antique wicker patio chair and how to choose a proper summer wardrobe, how to host a Fourth of July party and how to identify the symptoms of breast cancer.  

He likes the gardening catalogs best, though. He appreciates all the pictures, likes how every plant is listed in alphabetical order.   Everything neatly in its place.  Some catalogs feature garden designs, designs for kitchen gardens and cottage gardens and French countryside-themed gardens.

“What are you so interested in?” Dean asks him eventually, leaning over his shoulder to peer at the catalogs.  He ‘s being rather overly enthusiastic.  It makes Castiel feel exhausted.  “What are you looking at?” 

He shrugs uneasily.  Dean’s sudden hopefulness is alarming.  ”Sam gave me catalogs,” he mutters.

“You like ‘em?” Dean asks.

Castiel closes the catalog firmly.  ”They’re all right.”  He puts the catalog on the floor with the others and goes back to looking out the window.  

One day he opens his eyes and sees something different.  As far as he could tell, there had been a window, barred over with iron bars, and now there’s a window with iron bars and a plant, sitting on the windowsill.  

He closes his eyes after a moment of contemplation, because trying to process this sudden change is far too much effort to handle.  

It’s still there the next time he opens his eyes, and he stares at it with reluctance.  It’s a small cactus, the kind he’s seen in grocery stores, the type of gift he’s seen on television being given to the sick, the injured, the relatives of the deceased and dying.  Obviously this is Dean’s idea of a joke.  He doesn’t hate it exactly, but he doesn’t like it, fiercely and stubbornly and with more focus than he’s had since he fell.

But he forgets about it soon enough, once he learns he can tilt his head to avoid looking at the cactus.  The ceiling isn’t as pleasant as the window, but at least it doesn’t have intrusive cacti blocking the view. 

He hears Dean come into the room.  He hears Dean’s quiet exhale.  Dean leaves the room without saying a word.

Days later, he wakes up to find that there’s another plant on the windowsill.  A geranium, the saddest example of its species Castiel has ever seen.  Its leaves are limp and curling under.  Its blooms have dried up.  It probably hasn’t been watered in days.  It’s dying.

He hadn’t liked the cactus.  He  _hates_ the geranium.  

He gets up, goes to the kitchen, and brings back a glass of water.  He pours the water carefully over the geranium.  He might hate it, but it doesn’t deserve to die.

—

He gets up the next morning.

He waters the geranium.  He takes a shower.  He puts on the clothes Dean has tactfully left him by the armchair.

He goes into the kitchen and does all the chores before Dean or Sam or Kevin wake up.  He takes out the trash, wipes down the tables in the library, scrubbing away the glass stains from the bottoms of Dean’s beer bottles, and leaves out a set of decorative coasters outlined with Aquarian stars.  He wipes down the windows, dusts the lamps.  He decides he’s a morning person.

Dean finally catches him sweeping the lobby.  He just watches Castiel for a while.

“Wow,” Dean says finally.  “Look at you, up and about.  And cleaning, too.  That’s awesome.  You’re an awesome, uh, roommate.”

Castiel sneaks a glance at him.  Dean’s smiling to himself over something, leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets.  He almost looks happy.  

“You wanna eat breakfast with us?” Dean asks.  ”You can finish that later.  If you want.”

Sam stares a bit when Castiel sits down at the table, but doesn’t say anything, and Castiel is grateful for that.  He sits, and eats the bowl of cereal Dean hands him, and listens to Sam and Kevin gently tease Dean over liking something called  _Red Dwarf_.  Dean doesn’t seem to care.  He’s in high spirits for some unknown reason.  Castiel can’t help but smile a little at that.

“Hey,” he says, and Castiel suddenly realizes Dean’s talking to him, too.  ”You guys want to watch a movie tonight?  I know for a fact Cas’s never seen  _Star Wars_.”

Castiel feels himself go frozen, all at once. He sees a thousand Deans spread before him, bleeding from the heart, broken and battered.  He sees the wings of his brothers and sisters burnt to ashes, blowing away in the wind.

“Cas? Castiel?”

The last prayer he’d heard had been Dean, calling his name, just like this.  

He stumbles past the table, past Dean’s worried face.  He goes back to the library and sits in the chair. 

—

He keeps getting up, though, because he needs to water the geranium.  He keeps eating with the others, just because he’s sick of having food left out for him by his chair.  He keeps doing the chores, because they need doing.

Sam corners him in the kitchen one afternoon while he’s washing dishes.  “How are you feeling, Cas?” he asks quietly.

Castiel tries an experimental smile.  He wonders if it’s working.  “Oh, I’m fine.” he says.  He reaches for a glass and scrubs at it industrially  Maybe Sam will go away if he sees that Castiel is busy.

“It’s just, you know-” Sam trails off.  “You’ve gone through a lot, here, recently.  If you want to talk about it…”

The dish soap makes the glass slippery.  It’s hard to hold on to.  Castiel grips it tightly.

“I mean, you’ve got to be - I don’t know, angry about what happened-”

The glass wants to fall.  Castiel hangs on tighter.  

“It’s okay to be sad, Cas.”

The glass shatters in his hand.  

He hears Sam swear, then Dean’s voice, loud with anger, just outside the kitchen.  

“Sam, what’s the hell’s going on?  What’d you  _say_ -” Dean’s voice, cutting in over the shards of glass on the counter, the floor.  Castiel bends over and picks up the largest pieces of glass very very carefully. He places them in the trashcan and lets the lid fall shut.

“ _Dean_ -”

Dean pushes past Sam and crouches next to Castiel on the floor.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Castiel mutters.  ”I’m sorry.”

Dean’s wearing that look again.  That hopeless, frighteningly sad look.  He scrubs his hands across his face.  ”Are you okay?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” he tries to explain to Dean, but Dean doesn’t look like he believes it.  He just nods, once.  Then he gets up and walks out of the room.  

Castiel picks up the broken bits of glass, piece by piece, and when he’s gathered them all together he throws them away carefully in the trashcan so no one else can get hurt.

—

One day, Castiel picks up a fork and starts crying.

He stares down at the fork in his hand, not even noticing that anything’s wrong until he hears Dean’s voice, talking to him urgently.  ”Cas.  _Cas._ What’s wrong?”  

Castiel can feel something wet and hot sliding down his cheeks.  It’s not pleasant.  He wishes it would stop.  But the wetness continues on, running down his cheeks and sliding over his jaw, dripping down his neck and pooling in the hollow of his throat.

Dean looks afraid.  “Cas?” he asks uncertainly.  He’s hovering nearby, arm outstretched but not quite touching Castiel’s shoulder.  “Are you hurt, man?  Cas, what’s the matter?”

Castiel looks up at him helplessly.  “I don’t know,” he says, dumbfounded.  There’s no reason for this.  He’s perfectly fine.  He can’t understand why nothing seems to stop this disturbing wetness from continuing to run down his face.  “It’s fine,” he says.  He slowly raises a sleeve and rubs it over his eyes.

Dean’s hand grips his shoulder.  “What’s going on, buddy?” he’s asking quietly, almost in Castiel’s ear.  “Give me something to work with.”

Castiel can only shake his head.  “I don’t know,” he mutters.  

The tears are silent, and slow, but they hit him out of nowhere each time, and once they’ve started they don’t seem to stop.  He picks up a book Dean’s left on by the chair, and he starts weeping somewhere around in the middle of the second page; he starts weeping when he goes out to the curb and sees that one tire on the Impala is almost flat.  

“Dude,” Dean says, busily jacking up the Impala and rolling the flat tire off the wheel,  “I love my baby, but even I don’t get this emotional over a busted tire.  What gives?”

But Castiel can’t tell him, because he doesn’t know himself.  

Dean walks into the kitchen whistling one morning, but the cheerful look slowly fades off his face when he sees Castiel weeping furiously in front of the coffee pot the next morning.

“Ruin your coffee?” he jokes weakly, but Castiel can’t look at him.  He can’t look away from the coffee pot, half-filled with the leftover stale coffee from yesterday, burnt on the hot plate.  

He feels Dean take the coffee pot out of his hand.  “Hey,” Dean murmurs.  “I’ll start a fresh pot, okay?  It’s not the end of the world.  Not this time, anyway.”  

All Dean’s tolerant patience only makes things worse.  It’s infuriating.  He cries over the credits of  _The Empire Strikes Back_.  He cries at the dead mouse found in the mousetrap in the kitchen pantry.  The tears start again when Sam places a piece of pizza in front of him.

“Next time, no anchovies,” Dean says to Kevin.  He’s trying to lighten the mood, Castiel can tell.  He understands from observation that witnessing someone cry makes humans uncomfortable.  He’s making everyone uncomfortable.

He cries as he washes the dishes that night after dinner. He cries when Dean leaves a battered gray t-shirt by the locker room for him to wear.

And when he gets up the next morning and goes to water the geranium, he starts crying when he sees those dried-up blooms have flowered after all.

He can’t move. He just stands there, staring at the pale pink blossoms, and feeling the tears roll silently down his cheeks.  He looks up, over at the door.  Dean’s watching him.  Castiel picks up the geranium and throws it across the room.  

The geranium hits the wall and shatters into pieces, broken terracotta and potting soil and the ruined blooms.  And there’s Dean, standing in front of him, touching his face and wiping away the moisture.

Dean doesn’t say anything that makes sense.  He murmurs in Castiel’s ear, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

He takes Castiel’s hand like he has a perfect right to it and tugs Castiel close.  He wraps his arms around Castiel’s neck and leans forward, letting their foreheads meet, and Dean pulls him down to the floor.

He slumps against Dean’s body, and Dean holds him steady against his chest, one hand moving slowly to rest on Castiel’s cheek.  He reaches up and encounters fingers.  He understands the placement of Dean’s hands.  It wasn’t so long ago that he’d placed his hand on Dean’s face this way.

Dean presses a kiss on the top of his head. It makes the strings inside him pull him back and forth, seesawing between pleasure and pain, fluttering and twisting unhappily.“That hurts,” Castiel tells him, and closes his eyes fiercely.  ”Stop it.”

“Wish I could, baby.” Dean’s voice sounds odd.  It’s too light, joking, and Castiel is aware that moments before, this felt like a serious situation.

He stares up at the ceiling, away from Dean’s eyes. “I am not a baby,” he says stiffly, but he doesn’t have much enthusiasm for fighting Dean too strongly about this.  If Dean wants to think of him as a baby, well, that’s fine.  Castiel will endure.

“Yes, you are,” Dean says, rough, and Castiel is shifted slightly in his arms. When Castiel looks at him finally, he sees Dean’s brows drawn together - concern, yes, that, Castiel is familiar with Dean’s concern - but there’s something else in his face that makes his entire expression seem lighter.  Like he’s reached a decision, and it turned out to be the only choice he ever could have made.  “You’re  _my_  baby.  That means I get to take care of you.  That means you have to  _let_ me.”

It’s an odd thing to say.  Castiel lets it pass.  Dean says odd things all the time.  He says, instead, “I’m fine.”    

“No, you’re not,” Dean says.  He can feel Dean’s unsteady breath on the side of his face.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel says, because the situation seems to call for it.  There’s always something to be sorry for.  “You can let go now,” he adds, feeling resentful, but Dean’s arms only tighten further around him.

“No,” Dean says. “Just let me hold you for a little while, okay?  I  just need to.  You scared me.”  

Castiel closes his eyes. “I shouldn’t be here,” he says. “I shouldn’t be happy. Not now. Not after all that I’ve done.”

“I know,” Dean says. His voice is soft as a confession. “I know. But I’m so fucking happy that you’re here. With me. Even though you don’t want to be here. Even though you’re sad. I want you here, Cas.”

 He thinks about that for a while. “Oh,” he says finally. “Do you? I’m glad.” He lets his head fall on Dean’s shoulder, and Dean just holds him.

“Ready to get up?” Dean asks finally, moving slightly, and Castiel takes a moment to evaluate.  There’s Dean’s arm around him still, holding him close, there’s Dean’s chest beneath his cheek.  

He wants to stay here on the floor.  He thinks he wants to be here after all. He thinks he could learn to be like this, even though something’s missing, something will always be gone. But he does have Dean.

“Okay,” he says reluctantly. “I’ll get up.  Just one more minute.”


End file.
